Divine Dancer of Derring-Do F(12),Dls(10),SD(2),DC(6)
Description Fighter 12 / Duelist 10 / Shadowdancer 2 / Divine Champion 6 This build is chiefly designed to be both dependable in a fight, and fun to play. I personally don’t enjoy having to cast a ton of buffs before entering the fray, and I also don’t like playing a pure melee warrior where my only role in the battle is to sit back and watch him (or her) hack away. So I set out to design a character that could do enough damage to win most any fight while rarely getting hit, and also have a lot of options and tricks available to keep bouts from getting boring. This nimble fighter’s chief attributes are Intelligence and Dexterity. INT’s a permanent boon to AC thanks to Canny Defense from Duelist and Uncanny Dodge from Shadowdancer, it adds damage thanks to Combat Insight, and it of course gives more skill points than your average meatshield. Dexterity is kept high as well for AB, more AC, the Parry skill, feat qualification purposes, and extra damage from Expose Weakness. I decided to go for the Divine Champion PrC instead of Weapon Master because I’ve found that campaigns are usually chock-full of crit-immune enemies. Strengths: Good AC, especially against touch attacks, and an even higher Parry skill. With good equipment, your AC can easily be pushed over 50 with no buffs. Uncanny Dodge. Good Reflex saves and Evasion, as well as decent Fortitude. Can use Haste thanks to Duelist, but really can win most fights with few or no buffs. Combat Insight at Level 21 allows for high damage throughout the epic levels. Lots of feats. 29 BAB. More skill points and saves than most Fighters.Hide in Plain Sight allows escape when things go south. Weaknesses: Won’t do as much damage as RDD/FB type builds. Fairly low Will save, though higher than a pure Fighter thanks to DC. Character Creation Why these classes/races? Tiefling: * +2 DEX, +2 INT, -2 CHA * DEX and INT are the two most important attributes, CHA doesn’t matter * Infernal Resistance is nice, +1 ECL isn’t a big deal Alternatives: Drow will work if you really want Spell Resistance, but you’ll have less HP, +2 ECL instead of +1, and you’ll have to deal with light penalties. Air Genasi is almost the same as Tiefling, but you’ll have lower Wisdom. If you’re just dying to use the Weapon Master class instead of Divine Champion, however, a variant of this build would be an Air Genasi that takes 1 level of Cleric and 7 levels of WM instead of SD and DC. I don’t really think it’s worth it. Any other races than these three will have far worse ability scores. Fighter: * Level 12 for Epic Weapon Specialization * Fighter Bonus Feat used on Epic Prowess at Level 21, so Combat Insight taken at same level Duelist: * Level 10 allows +10 AC bonus with Canny Defense and an INT +8 item * Precise Strike and innate Haste ability add to combat prowess * High Parry skill a good defensive ability Shadowdancer: * Level 2 for Hide in Plain Sight, Evasion, and Uncanny Dodge * Evasion allows build to qualify for Expose Weakness Divine Champion: * Level 6 gives +3 bonus to all saves * First bonus feat used for Epic Weapon Focus at level 25, allowing Epic Weapon Specialization that level Notes This is a fighter with a lot of options in combat. You can use Hide in Plain Sight to sneak up on your enemies, use Improved Reaction to Haste yourself, and then start things off with Flourish or Expose Weakness. If you find yourself surrounded by a horde of weak enemies, you can wipe them all out with an Improved Whirlwind Attack or two. If instead you’re fighting a couple of tough enemies, Parry mode will be your friend. You can always use Combat Expertise if you need a little extra AC boost, and if things start to go bad, you can use Hide in Plain Sight again to retreat and regroup. This may be obvious, but just to make sure everyone’s clear, you can’t wear armor when playing this build or you’ll lose Canny Defense. You can gain your AC Armor modifier from Bracers of Armor, or, if you really want to confuse your foes, by wearing an epic Wizard robe (a lot of them don’t have a class requirement to equip). The lack of spell resistance could make it tough to go solo. If you can get an item enchanted with high spell resistance, that might be enough, but if not a caster companion can help you out. Using Drow instead of Tiefling is also a possibility, as I mentioned earlier. I have played through MotB with this build (as a Lawful Evil follower of Hoar), and it worked quite well. I was able to kill the infamous badger one-on-one at around Level 24 by using Parry and a couple Potions of Heal. I will admit that this means I started playing at Level 20, so I’m not sure how well it will work in the pre-epic levels. The lack of Uncanny Dodge until Level 20 and Combat Insight until Level 21 would be a problem for anyone using this build in the early levels. In case it's not obvious, the Shadowdancer levels are taken so late because it takes quite a while to get 10 ranks in Hide cross-class. Skills Maximize Parry to end up with a very high effective level in it (at least 60 at level 30 with good equipment and no buffs). Take 30 ranks in Tumble for the +3 AC bonus. Choose Intimidate or Bluff for your conversation skill, depending on how you want to role-play (Diplomacy won’t work very well). Hide and Move Silently are requirements for Shadowdancer and with Hide in Plain Sight allow escapes and surprise attacks. The rest are up to you; I’ve found Lore, Appraise, Spellcraft, and possibly Heal to be useful. Damage Calculation With no buffs except Haste from Duelist levels and nothing but a plain Rapier equipped, assuming all attacks hit, two hits are criticals (the expected value), and the enemy is vulnerable to critical hits: Main Hand Attack Bonus: +41/+41/+36/+31/+26/+21/+16 Damage: 3.5 (base average)+ 6 (Combat Insight)+ 6 (EWS)+ 7 (Precise Strike average) Per Hit =22.5 (45 on criticals) Total Damage 202.5 I’d have to say that’s pretty good average damage for a naked single-mundane-Rapier-wielding non-STR-based Fighter! It will of course be a lot higher if you equip godly MotB gear and have every buff known to man going, and you can mix things up with fun stuff like Expose Weakness, Flourish, and Parry. Category:Character builds Category:Melee Character builds